A New World Is But a New Mind
How do you perceive the world around you? Is it friendly? Hostile? Filled with adventure and pleasant experiences, or is it restrictive and riddled with disappointments. Are there lots of opportunities to get ahead financially and make a lot of money, or have most of the good ideas come and gone? Is life enjoyable, pleasant, boring, exciting, hard?
In attempting to answer the above questions, you might ask yourself the following: What does my experience tell me? Each of us will answer this question in a slightly different way, and sometimes we will contradict each other with our answers. Yet, amazingly enough, each of us will be right. Whatever you answer is right and true… for you.
Life does not consist of any absolute truths as we understand them. Life is much more fluid and dynamic than that. It is as diverse and varied as the people who experience it, and what you experience without has its root cause within. You are a law unto yourself, and what you believe within will be both the lens through which you view the world, and the attracting force by which countless experiences will be drawn to you.
You have more power to create and influence your life than you ever suspected. In fact, you are creating your life this very moment by your inner beliefs and the thoughts you are choosing to entertain. Your thoughts and beliefs are not merely inner perceptions and attitudes, but are actual physical vibrations of energy as real as the floor below you and the clothes you wear. They are the main creative forces in formulating the life you now are experiencing, and in determining what will happen in your future. Simply stated, your thoughts and beliefs are the single most important factor in your life, and one over which you have total control. Yet most of us pay them minimal if any attention.
How We See the World
Each of us naturally assumes that we see the events and circumstances of our life as they actually are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world and ourselves in it, not as it is, but as we are, as we are conditioned to see it. We see it through the lens of who and what we are. To know this is to know something great, for no one gets to view the world without a lens (a perspective coloured by beliefs, expectations and past experiences). Our mind processes all experience through this filter, and often that experience gets misinterpreted in the process. Discovering and seeing what is really going on in our life is actually far trickier than you might suppose. In fact it is almost impossible, for one never gets to view the world without a lens (perspective). The best we can do is exchange different lenses (viewpoints, beliefs), and decide which is more accurate, or at least which one feels right, much the same way as going for an eye exam to discover the right lens to counteract an eye deficiency.
In fact this analogy is quite apt in helping us to understand our present situation.
If you find your seeing is hampered, with objects and people seemingly out of focus and fuzzy — you don’t say life is out of focus — you don’t blame out there. You see what you can do to correct your vision. You try a number of different lenses — some make your vision seem better, some make it seem worse, and eventually you settle on one that feels right.
It’s exactly the same with our life. The problems and obstacles we encounter in life are caused by what is within. Your lens is both distorting and creating your reality. When you change your lens, your reality will change.
Here’s What Happens
The events of our life, whatever they are, are always being interpreted by our mind’s lens. All available data coming to us is sifted, weighed and brought to our attention or dismissed. Information or events running counter to our concepts will be ignored to a large degree, or distorted in such a fashion to fit in with what our mind sees as reality.
Now let us take this even a step further and you will begin to see how powerful your beliefs are.
All physical reality is made up of vibrations of energy. The chair you sit on, the walls that surround you, your physical body, everything is made up of vibrations of energy. This is not a theory or concept; this is a fact known and understood by physicists. Our thoughts and beliefs are also vibrations of energy consisting of the exact same substance. Thoughts that are repeated again and again, especially if done with feeling and emotion, will gradually take an imprint on the subconscious. Once this happens a remarkable transformation takes place. These imprintings vibrating within us attract from the outer web of reality the people, circumstances and events that co-relate with what is within. These crystallized beliefs channel your energy and act as a magnet.
You must understand again that your ideas, thoughts, beliefs do not exist as phantoms or shadow images without substance. They are electromagnetic realities operating within your nervous system attracting and creating the experiences of your life.
The more we become aware of this and realize how our experiences are influenced by our inner programs, the more we can be creative with our beliefs and consciously change and experiment with the lens we wear.
Beliefs are as necessary to us as physical organs. We cannot exist without them. We need parameters to interpret what is happening in our life. One will never be without beliefs, nor should one want to be. What you do want, however, is to decide whether the beliefs you now have are serving you well.
We need to see and understand the lens through which we are viewing the world. We need to view it without criticism or judgment, and thus to know ourselves at a deep level. We need to know ourselves as our subconscious knows us. This means being courageous, but if we can do this we might discover within ourselves limiting and self-defeating beliefs that are holding us back from achieving what it is we want.
To illustrate this let’s examine what happens to two individuals who have completely opposite beliefs, each living their lives with a different lens. One person sees the world filled with opportunities waiting to be discovered and acted upon. He imagines himself being successful. He believes his actions, creativity and ingenuity will reward him abundantly. He believes that he has what it takes to be tremendously successful. These beliefs become internalized and the lens through which he sees the world. They also become his inner vibration which, acting upon the outer web of reality, is forever attracting or repelling people, circumstances and events. His lens affects his emotions, feelings, daily way of thinking, and influences his actions and decisions.
Another person believes that the odds are stacked against him. He believes that all the good opportunities to make money have been taken, and that those that haven’t are too difficult to find. He believes that life is hard and filled with disappointment, and no matter what he does he is probably doomed to failure. Like with the first person, these beliefs also become internalized and the lens through which he sees the world. They also become his inner vibration which, acting upon the outer web of reality, is forever attracting or repelling people, circumstances, and events. They affect his emotions, feelings, daily way of thinking, and influence his actions and decisions. It is not hard to imagine what possibilities exist for each individual, and what probable futures await them.
You form the fabric of your experience through your own beliefs and expectations. You take your beliefs about reality as truth, and often do not question them. They seem self-explanatory. They appear in your mind as statements of fact, far too obvious for examination. Therefore they are accepted without question. They are not recognized as beliefs about reality, but are instead considered characteristics of reality itself. Frequently such ideas appear indisputable, so it does not occur to you to speculate about their validity. They become invisible assumptions that form and create your personal experiences.
As I mentioned earlier, and paradoxically, in the preceding example, both individuals are correct. You might expect that I would say that the more positive one was closer to reality. Not at all. Both realities are valid and real. Each will attract to them according to what they vibrate within. They will reap what they sow. Neither is more correct than the other. There are countless realities awaiting each individual, according to his or her beliefs. It is simply a matter of determining the beliefs we will hold.
Read more: What You See is What You Get – Part II